Green’s Dictionary of Slang

to not care at all.

1546		J. Heywood Proverbs II Ch. ix: For stoppyng of gaps (quoth he) care not a rushe.
1598		Jonson Every Man In his Humour I i: I’ll not give a rush for him.
1626		Jonson Staple of News II i: I would not give a rush for a Vice, that has not a wooden dagger to snap at every body he meets.
1692		C. Gildon Dialogue from Hell of Cuckoldom 15: S---nk me, Ned, I was always of thy Mind, as long as I could flutter abroad in my Glass Coach [...] D---me if I car’d a rush who rid in my Saddle.
1707		Cibber Double Gallant V i: Not that I think her handsome, or care a rush for her.
1759–67		Sterne Tristram Shandy (1949) 74: Rot the hundred and twenty pounds, – he did not mind it a rush.
1785		‘Peter Pindar’ ‘Lyric Odes’ Works (1794) I 116: Fame [...] For you, no longer cares a single rush.
1801		‘Peter Pindar’ ‘Orson and Ellen’ Works (1801) V 345: Oh! can the Great for Modesty Not care a single rush!
1836		Comic Almanack Feb. 45: I’d soar aloft on freedom’s wing, / Not care a rush for transfer day.
1841		W.J. Neale Paul Periwinkle 486: I don’t care one rush about it.
1877		Harry Hunter ‘A Fiddler Went to St Petersburg’ 🎵 Then she with a blush said ‘Not a rush / Care I for a Russian beau’.
1890		‘Rolf Boldrewood’ Colonial Reformer III 227: They positively did not care a rush for each other.
1919		J. Buchan Mr Standfast (1930) 450: Remember that you are an engineer just back from South Africa, and that you don’t care a rush about the war.
1925		L. Doyle Dear Ducks 272: The two front mudguards an’ the other lamp were in porridge; but Mr. Anthony didn’t care a rush.